Your Voter Registration Deadline Might Be Coming Up, So Slacking Time Is Over

Election Day 2018 is coming up fast, and it's super important that you pick the folks who are going to represent you in the House and Senate as well as in your local government. So if you want to have a say and vote in the general midterm election on Nov. 6, then the first thing you need to do is make sure that you're registered to vote well before the deadline. In order to do that, though, you'll have to know what's the deadline to register to vote in the 2018 midterms — but don't worry because I have you covered.

Most states require you to be registered in advance of the election, but the amount of time varies. For instance, if you live in New York you must be registered 25 days prior to Election Day, which means you should register before Oct. 12. Some states, though, give you a little more time. In Colorado you can register as few as eight days before Election Day, and in Maine you can register in-person on the actual day of the election. TBH, it's a little complicated, since each state has a different set of rules regarding their registration deadlines. If you want to know what the deadline is for your state, all you need to do is head to Voter.org. There, you'll find a rundown of all the states with their corresponding registration deadlines and any other information you might need.

Once you find out what the deadline is in your state, you might be wondering how to actually register — because obviously that's very useful. Well, it's pretty simple, but also works according to your state.

For the most part, all you need to do is head to Vote.gov, where you'll be prompted to pick your state from a dropdown menu. After that, the site will let you know if you can register online, or whether you need to mail it in. For those of you in states like New York or Rhode Island where there's online registration available, you can just click "start online registration" and you'll be prompted to fill in some basic information like your social security number and date of birth. If you live in states like Texas or Arkansas where online registration isn't available to you, then you'll be given a PDF to print out, fill in, and then mail to the given address. Most states do offer online registration, though, and even if you have to rely on snail mail the process is still pretty easy.

Now that you know how simple it is, there's no reason not to register. The primaries started in the summer so you may have missed them in your state, but there is still plenty of time to register so that you can have a say in how your government looks come the new term in January 2019. But, no matter what your deadline is, I'd advise you to get to registering ASAP — because you don't want to procrastinate too much and then totally miss the deadline.

Now you have everything you need in order to be full prepared come Tuesday, Nov. 6, get to registering! Oh, and don't forget to actually go vote. That's super important too.